HAPPY DAYS IN THE GREEN FOREST
These were happy days in the Green Forest. At least, they were happy for
Lightfoot the Deer. They were the happiest days he had ever known. You
see, he had won beautiful, slender, young Miss Daintyfoot, and now she
was no longer Miss Daintyfoot but Mrs. Lightfoot. Lightfoot was sure
that there was no one anywhere so beautiful as she, and Mrs. Lightfoot
knew that there was no one so handsome and brave as he.
Wherever Lightfoot went, Mrs. Lightfoot went. He showed her all his
favorite hiding-places. He led her to his favorite eating-places. She
did not tell him that she was already acquainted with every one of them,
that she knew the Green Forest quite as well as he did. If he had
stopped to think how day after day she had managed to keep out of his
sight while he hunted for her, he would have realized that there was
little he could show her which she did not already know. But he didn't
stop to think and proudly led her from place to place. And Mrs.
Lightfoot wisely expressed delight with all she saw quite as if it were
all new.
Of course, all the little people of the Green Forest hurried to pay
their respects to Mrs. Lightfoot and to tell Lightfoot how glad they
felt for him. And they really did feel glad. You see, they all loved
Lightfoot and they knew that now he would be happier than ever, and that
there would be no danger of his leaving the Green Forest because of
loneliness. The Green Forest would not be the same at all without
Lightfoot the Deer.
Lightfoot told Mrs. Lightfoot all about the terrible days of the hunting
season and how glad he was that she had not been in the Green Forest
then. He told her how the hunters with terrible guns had given him no
rest and how he had had to swim the Big River to get away from the
hounds.
"I know," replied Mrs. Lightfoot softly. "I know all about it. You see,
there were hunters on the Great Mountain. In fact, that is how I
happened to come down to the Green Forest. They hunted me so up there
that I did not dare stay, and I came down here thinking that there might
be fewer hunters. I wouldn't have believed that I could ever be thankful
to hunters for anything, but I am, truly I am."
There was a puzzled look on Lightfoot's face. "What for?" he demanded.
"I can't imagine anybody being thankful to hunters for anything."
"Oh, you stupid," cried Mrs. Lightfoot. "Don't you see that if I hadn't
been driven down from the Great Mountain, I never would have found
_you_?"
"You mean, I never would have found _you_," retorted Lightfoot. "I guess
I owe these hunters more than you do. I owe them the greatest happiness
I have ever known, but I never would have thought of it myself. Isn't it
queer how things which seem the very worst possible sometimes turn out
to be the very best possible?"
Blacky the Crow is one of Lightfoot's friends, but sometimes even
friends are envious. It is so with Blacky. He insists that he is quite
as important in the Green Forest as is Lightfoot and that his doings are
quite as interesting. Therefore just to please him the next book is to
be Blacky the Crow.